Introduction: “The Legal and Policy Issues of Vouchers: Multiple Perspectives on Private School Choice”

This issue of the Peabody Journal of Education presents nine articles that examine publicly funded voucher and voucher-like programs established by states to provide monetary support for parents enrolling their children in private schools. Three types of such programs have evolved over the last two decades: (a) vouchers, programs that provide public funds to pay for private school tuition in whole or part; (b) tax-credit scholarships, programs that permit individuals and corporations to set aside a portion of their taxes for tuition scholarships for private school attendance; and (c) education savings accounts, programs that create individual accounts into which parents may request that per-pupil funds earmarked for public education be deposited instead so that parents may use the funds for a variety of educational expenses, including private school tuition (Prothero, 2015). Currently, 25 states have one or more of these voucher and voucher-like programs (Education Commission of the States, 2015).

States have used vouchers for many years. Over a century ago, Maine and Vermont enacted laws to allow local school boards with small student populations to provide students with vouchers to attend public or nonsectarian private schools in neighboring communities rather than erect schools of their own. In the 1950s, Milton Friedman, an economist at the University of Chicago, began to champion the idea of using vouchers as way to create an educational marketplace as an alternative to funding public school districts (Chubb & Moe, 1990). It was not until the 1990s, however, that state legislatures began to adopt voucher and voucher-like programs. The following list provides a brief history of major hallmarks in the development of voucher and voucher-like programs that exist today:

• 1860s—Maine and Vermont enact legislation that permits sparsely populated areas to offer vouchers for students to attend other public schools in other districts or private nonsectarian schools when the local school district does not offer classes at certain children's academic levels.

• 1955—Milton Friedman introduces the idea of providing each child with a publicly funded voucher as an alternative to the ways states funded schools through public school districts.

• 1950s–1960s—Some state legislatures adopt voucher programs as a way to avoid desegregating public schools.

• 1964—The Supreme Court declares it unconstitutional to use vouchers to avoid desegregation in Griffin v. Prince Edward County.

• 1970s—The U.S. government conducts the Alum Rock Experiment, a modest experiment on school choice.

• 1990—Wisconsin enacts the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, the first publicly funded voucher program that permits low-income Milwaukee students to attend private nonsectarian schools with tax dollars.

• 1995—The Milwaukee voucher program expands to include private religious schools, and Ohio enacts the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program that likewise permits religious school participation.

• 1997—Arizona creates the first tax credit scholarship program.

• 1999—Florida creates the first special education voucher program designed for children with disabilities.

• 2002—The Supreme Court upholds the Cleveland voucher program in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, ruling that vouchers that fund religious school tuition do not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

• 2011—Arizona creates the first education savings account program.

The nine articles in this issue explore vouchers from a variety of perspectives and each, in some manner, examines the issue of publicness. Public education in the United States is not merely public because of its funding source. Public education is also characterized by other aspects of publicness: public purpose, public access, public accountability to communities, and public curriculum (Mead, 2015, p. 743). Accordingly, the examinations of publicly funded voucher programs in these nine articles consider to what degree provisions that define voucher and voucher-like programs affirm or oppose these attributes of publicness.

In this issue, Thompson Dorsey and Plucker investigate vouchers in relation to the public purpose of education by examining the organizational and political dimensions of vouchers in “Deregulation and the American Education Marketplace.” Two other articles examine how vouchers align with the public purpose of education through their discussion of the vouchers’ consistency with federal and state constitutional concerns. In “Religious Challenges to School Voucher and Tax Benefit/Scholarship Programs,” McCarthy reports on challenges to vouchers on religious grounds, while in “Non-Religion-Based State Constitutional Challenges to Educational Voucher and Tax Credit Programs,” Green discusses litigation centered on questions about vouchers in relation to state constitutional provisions that govern education. “A Review of the Empirical Research on Private School Choice “ by Egalite and Wolf and “An Analysis of Voucher Advocacy: Taking a Closer Look at the Uses and Limitations of ‘Gold Standard’ Research” by Lubienski and Brewer synthesize and analyze the research on voucher programs, raising issues of public accountability and purpose. The issue also examines aspects of public access in three separate articles. Bon, Decker, and Strassfeld focus on those voucher programs that are designed particularly for students with disabilities in “Special Education Voucher Programs, Reflective Judgment, and Future Legislative Recommendations.” Gooden, Jabbar, and Torres examine vouchers through a racial lens in “Race and School Vouchers: Legal, Historical, and Political Contexts.” Eckes, Mead, and Ulm likewise consider access by analyzing the nondiscrimination provisions in voucher statutes in “Dollars to Discriminate: The (Un)intended Consequences of School Vouchers.” Finally, Fox and Buchanan offer a conclusion, which discusses themes and ideas that unify the issue.

It is our hope that these nine articles provide insight into the issues that surround publicly funded voucher programs, as well as generate ideas for others to continue research on these important state education policies.